Another thought struck me recently regarding Shakespeare's use of poetry (and I'm not referring to the verse only; even his prose is poetic). As we listen, we are very much aware that people don't speak in those ways - this was one of Tolstoy's beefs about Shakespeare, in fact - but we're also aware that people do feel in those ways. And like with music or dance, we know that we're witnessing an exaggeration, but what this exaggeration leads to is of such depth that it's unlikely that it could have been found otherwise. The poetry, therefore, helps us to think certainly, but just as importantly, it allows us to empathize emotionally.

Also, the poetic language makes us immediately aware that we're watching fiction (even when historical sources have been consulted), but the quick establishment of this fact permits the mind to go past the surface issues of story-telling and veracity to get to the real psychological and philosophical content. For an example, here's Cassius speaking to Casca (1.3) about the reasons for Caesar's ascension; in his opinion, it's merely a symptom of Rome's weakness. Note the poetic content of the words and the emotions they release. Then imagine the danger in even thinking them:

And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?

Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf,

But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:

He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.

Those that with haste will make a mighty fire

Begin it with weak straws: what trash is Rome,

What rubbish and what offal, when it serves

For the base matter to illuminate

So vile a thing as Caesar! But, O grief,

Where hast thou led me? I perhaps speak this

Before a willing bondman; then I know

My answer must be made. But I am arm'd,

And dangers are to me indifferent.

Another example of Shakespeare's use of overlapping time frames occurs in act three, scene two of Julius Caesar. It is best known for Antony's speech which begins with "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears", and which ends with him having turned the throng completely against the republican side represented by Brutus and Cassius. In it, he proves himself a very able and cynical politician: He doesn't tell the truth about his intentions once. (I can't remember which humourist it was who defined a "gaffe" as "a moment when a politician accidentally tells the truth", but Antony would've concurred.) By the end of his oration, the crowd is beginning to riot, and Antony says to himself: "Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot/ Take thou what course thou wilt." Then enters a servant who brings news that Octavius is come to Rome, and that "Brutus and Cassius are rid like madmen through the gates of Rome". So in real time, the beginning of the riot and their escape would have a separation of about fifteen seconds, which would be most unlikely, if not impossible. But occasions like this one never feel wrong when we experience them in the play. They simply add to the momentum.

Yesterday I wrote about the final exchange between Menas and Pompey, where Menas' offered assassination of the triumvirs is rejected by Pompey, for reasons having as much to do with public perception as ethical concern. Menas' reference to someone "who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offer'd" never getting the chance again, brought to mind one of Brutus' well-known quotes from Julius Caesar. Where, as is often the case with him, he disagrees with someone else's plan and gives eloquent reasons for doing so. Here, he is speaking to Cassius, and saying that they shouldn't wait in a defensive position for the armies of Octavius and Antony to attack, but that they should make the first move:

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

These lines are deservedly famed for their poetic content, and often they are quoted to support causes requiring action. Fair enough, but I think it's important to remember that Shakespeare doesn't provide us with dictums, only matters for thought and consideration, and that often the speaker and his or her words, and their results, are at odds. In this case, they do decide to follow Brutus' plan, and then lose the battle, and their lives.

In my continuing quest to try to understand the principles that guided Shakespeare's writing, I've noticed this: With every appearance of a character, there is always change and/or growth in his or her thinking. It can happen between scenes or even between plays, but never does the audience feel that there is repetitiveness in terms of psychological content. I'd better use an example. At the end of Julius Caesar (5.5), Antony gives his famous speech at the death of Brutus, wherein he contrasts his character with those of the other conspirators:

This was the noblest Roman of them all:

All the conspirators save only he

Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;

He only, in a general honest thought

And common good to all, made one of them.

His life was gentle, and the elements

So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up

And say to all the world 'This was a man!'

OK, in the sequel (of sorts), Antony and Cleopatra, Antony mentions Brutus only once. In this scene (3.11), he realizes that his own defeat is approaching, and he is bitterly slighting the leader who is ascendant, Octavius, as a poor soldier who did little to defeat the Republican forces at the battle of Philippi, and doesn't deserve his power:

... he at Philippi kept

His sword e'en like a dancer; while I struck

The lean and wrinkled Cassius; and 'twas I

That the mad Brutus ended: he alone

Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practise had

In the brave squares of war: yet now--No matter.

What is it that brought about Antony's change in attitude toward Brutus? The audience is left with work to do, a gap to fill. There are many examples of this type of thing in Shakespeare. As always, thought is provoked.

Shakespeare's political sophistication seems boundless. In Julius Caesar, for example, he delineates the endless cycle toward, and then away from, centralized power. He embodies it in the character of Cassius, a man who knows enough of both Rome and himself to make his cynicism work for political ends, but who can't overcome his distrust of his own nature. He understands the dangers presented by Mark Antony much more clearly than Brutus does, but he lets himself be over-ruled in the play's moment of crisis: the decision of whether to allow Mark Antony to speak at Caesar's funeral. And we are introduced to this double nature the first time we meet him. At the end of 1.2, after his having convinced Brutus to at least consider joining the plot to assassinate Caesar, he has a moment of astonishing honesty in a brief soliloquy at the end of the scene. In it, he imagines telling Brutus the truth: that an honest man should avoid people like him (Cassius, that is), and that if he were loved by Caesar the way that Brutus is, that he wouldn't allow himself to be talked into upsetting his favoured position by anyone:

Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet, I see,

Thy honourable metal may be wrought

From that it is disposed: therefore it is meet

That noble minds keep ever with their likes;

For who so firm that cannot be seduced?

Caesar doth bear me hard; but he loves Brutus:

If I were Brutus now and he were Cassius,

He should not humour me.